Are You Ready?
by YoureADemigodKatniss
Summary: Words seemed to have lost their meaning as Sirius and Marlene gazed up into the empty sky. "Are you ready?" (Sirius/Marlene fluff.)
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I love writing all things ****_Harry Potter_****. I thought I'd give Marauder-era Sirius and Marlene a try, as they're one of my major OTPs. PS: To all our ****_Rough Waters_**** readers, we'll update soon! My co-author broke her laptop, but it's fixed now.**

**And to those of you reading this who haven't read ****_Rough Waters_****: you totally should. Percabeth. Pirates. Lots of fun.**

**Anyways, I hope y'all enjoy this two-chapter quickie.**

**Here goes!**

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"We are not stabbing anyone," Marlene sighed. She rested her face in her palm, burying an elbow deeper into the dry grass.

Sirius snorted. "I never said we would!"

"You _implied_," Marlene countered, a grin breaking through her dark cherry-colored lipstick.  
Sirius raised a questioning eyebrow. "Oh, sod off. Since when has, 'Let's do something' meant 'Let's stab someone'?"

Marlene shrugged. "I dunno, you just made it sound really ominous, like, 'Let's _do_ something...' I mean, c'mon, it's..." Marlene checked her watch for the time, "Eleven forty-six at night, we're sitting in a dark meadow. 'Let's do something' could mean anything."

Sirius slapped a palm to his forehead. "This 'dark meadow' is called a _Quidditch pitch, _which I expected you'd know, since you're on the bloody team!" He laughed for a moment. "We—it's not _that_ late—is it?"

"Yeah, it is." Marlene took a lackadaisical sip of her mostly-melted Slurpee. Sirius wrinkled his nose.

"Ugh," he scoffed, "How do you drink that? It's pure sugar!"

"Exactly. Well, sugar and a bit of ice water, but it's pretty much lukewarm by now..."

"Yeah, but it's just... ew." Sirius seemed unable to find the right word to voice his disgust.

"I paid five bucks for it," Marlene said, "I've gotta finish it." She pulled off the cheap plastic lid and took the straw out of the slightly bent paper cup, tilting it up to her lips. Sirius could smell the "raspberry" syrup.

"Oh—you're not gonna—oh, Merlin, no... No, eugh!"

Marlene chugged the remainder of the bright red syrup, and, with a satisfied expression, triumphantly tossed the cup in Sirius's direction. Sirius batted it away, and shrieked indignantly when a few drops of red syrup found themselves on the sleeve of his tee shirt. Sirius licked his fingers and frantically tried to scrub the stains away, but Marlene just chuckled and rolled over onto her back, tucking her arms behind her head.

After a minute or so of attempts to redeem his tee shirt from the ugly red stains, Sirius simply gave up and flopped down next to Marlene, puffing out his cheeks.

A street light flickered down the road. For a few moments it was silent; neither the wizard nor witch could really tell what the other was thinking as they lay shoulder-to-shoulder, the gregarious blonde, and the brash, cynical, but sometimes sensitive dark-haired boy. Sirius and Marlene. Marlene and Sirius. The unbreakable duo, the Terrible Two. Words seemed to lose their meaning as the two lay side by side, staring up at the empty sky.

After a small eternity, Marlene spoke up, scarcely more than a whisper. "Are you ready?"

"I don't think I'd ever be," Sirius replied.

"It's a lot to take in, yeah? This being our last night together before we graduate. Before I start Auror training and you… you do whatever you're gonna do."

Sirius laughed. It was more of a quick exhale, really, as if anything louder would shatter the tranquility of the moment. Another long silence followed, except for the sound of frogs croaking. Marlene was silent for a while—she never really spoke that much anyway, except around Sirius.

Sirius rolled over onto his right side to face the witch.

"I'm gonna miss you, Black," Marlene whispered.

"I… I'm gonna miss you, too. And I'm sorry about that one time in second year when I hung your knickers off the Astronomy Tower."

"That was _you_?"

"Erm… maybe?"

"If it weren't our last night together, I would _so_ kick your arse."

"I know you would, Mar." It was true.

"I still might, Black."

"Oh, sod off, you know you love me." Sirius drawled.

There was an unusually awkward silence then, as the two of avoided eye contact. Marlene was thankful for the clouds covering the moonlight, as she was blushing fiercely.

Sirius raised an eyebrow, waiting for a reply. "What? No witty comeback?" His voice wasn't mocking, however. There was an almost imperceptible trace of… something.

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**That was fun! Tune in for the next chapter soon!**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Chapter Two, yay! Enjoy! Also, read our other story, ****_Rough Waters_****. Percabeth. Pirates. Lots of fun.**

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There was definitely something there that Marlene had never noticed before. She'd caught glimpses of the same expression before—the same softness in his eyes, reflecting her own image directly back at herself. Surely, reflected in Marlene's eyes, Sirius must've seen the same thing, because all at once Marlene understood what that something was.

And all at once, Marlene felt it, too.

It wasn't that she hadn't felt that way before—that feeling had always been there, something irreplaceable tugging at the corner of her heart—she just felt it all at once, a surge of emotion. Perhaps it wasn't this strange warm feeling that Marlene considered irreplaceable... Perhaps it was the boy who made her feel it. The boy who she'd spent years with, laughing and playing and teasing. The boy who she'd always absentmindedly watched from the corner of her eye.

The boy who was, incidentally, very close to her at that given moment.

Marlene hardly dared to breathe as her brown eyes met his grey ones, framed by elegant dark lashes. His irises disappeared as his eyelids slid shut. Marlene closed her eyes too, but rather abruptly out of nervousness. All that nervousness melted away, however, when the long-overdue kiss finally settled between them.

In storybooks, it was always a big deal when one character opened their mouth during a kiss, but it was really quite hard to keep her lips closed. They settled into the kiss quickly, and suddenly his fingers were in her hair, and her arms were around his neck, as they lay in the dead grass beside the castle. Neither of them could really get enough of each other.

Marlene pulled away for a second, flustered. Sirius's eyes glowed silver in the moonlight, and she wanted to look away, but she really, really, couldn't, because she'd waited so long for this moment, and nothing could really spoil it.


End file.
